Dawn's Storm
by Kiri no Shida
Summary: It wasn't always an easy rode in the development of Matsumoto Rangiku and Shuuhei Hisagi's relationship. But isn't that always the case? Takes place throughout the Bleach story line. Matsumoto/Shuuhei
1. A Call to Freedom

The first time Hisagi Shuuhei saw Matsumoto Rangiku was when he was entering the Shinigami Academy to take his entrance exam.

He had stepped into the foyer of the main entrance, glancing at his paper that had the directions to the exam room when he caught the site of orange in his peripheral vision. His head turned and found himself looking at four students of the academy walking down the hall, books in hand and conversing amongst themselves. Two wore the standard male uniforms of white and blue and the other two were wearing the female red uniforms. The men were grinning as one of the girls blushed fiercely.

It was the woman who had a fierce grin that captured his attention. Her hair was not actually orange but a bright, golden red. It bobbed around her face and the ends brushed against her jaw as she walked. There was a curl to the ends of it and it looked just as alive as her smile. Her eyes sparkled like light playing off water as she laughed with the two men she conversed with.

Shuuhei stood grounded where he was as he watched the four cross in front of him, continuing across the lobby. The womans voice swept over him as he watched her, wrapping around him and lightening his mood. He was a little surprised at the pitch of her voice; he would have thought it would be high and maybe a little whiny. But instead it held this lower pitch, like a low strum on a guitar that hummed through out him.

It was probably the sexiest thing Shuuhei had ever heard in his life.

The four of them were long gone before Shuuhei got a complete hold over himself. The woman had just shone with life and vitality, and he had to wonder what gave her so much joy. It looked like she had no cares in the world. What he would give to feel even just a portion of that freedom.

Surprisingly he could not remember what she looked like but he knew he would recognize her anywhere if he ran into her again.

Rubbing his fingers over the paper he held, Shuuhei looked down at the map again and turned to go down the hall the woman and her friends had come from. He glanced one more time behind him before walking down the hall.

If anything, he would be able to see her again if he passed the exam.


	2. Storms are Brewing

Matsumoto Rangiku was in a cheerful mood as she left the office of her sensei, a stack of papers in her hands and a bounce in her step. She made quick work crossing the academy grounds, headed over to the First Years office. During class she had fallen asleep while the sensei had been lecturing on how to use reishi. Really, she had wanted to pay attention to the lecture, but she had been drinking with some of the guys the night before and she still had a slight hangover.

Luckily Kotetsu Isane had been in class, so she had gotten her to help elevate her headache between classes. The girl was a genius when it came to the healing arts.

So as for her first punishment Matsumoto was to deliver some papers to the other side of the building. Once that was done, she was supposed to report back to her sensei for her next reparation.

But how could Matsumoto be down? The sky was cloudless and the sun was out. The air was a perfect balance of warm sun rays and cool breezes. On top of that she was doing well in her classes and was caught up on all her work for the semester. Not to mention she had one hell of a good time drinking the night before. It was not often she got the chance to let loose like that.

As she crossed the campus she smiled and greeted everyone she recognized or smiled her way. She threw a few flirtatious glances toward the men as she passed and thoroughly enjoyed herself. Nothing was bringing her down today.

After dropping the papers off at the First Years office and having taken a moment to rile up her old senseis, Matsumoto took the hall that would take her the opposite way she had come from. She wanted to look around at the old classrooms from three years ago where she had begun her education. Sometimes she still wondered at the fact that she was half way through her schooling. It was all going so fast and sometimes she thought she could not keep up with the pace.

The hallway turned leading to the open fields where combat and kido were practiced by First Year students. She had felt jolts of reiatsu hovering in the air since she entered the First Year section of the academy, meaning some class was practicing.

When she got to the area of the hall that opened up to a landing by the field, Matsumoto found herself standing among a group of other students who were watching the practicing in the field. She studied the fighting the students were doing and determined the students were practicing hakuda. Matsumoto snorted under her breath when she realized this and thought to herself that not even half of the students out on the field would ever use the technique by the time they graduated. Hakuda revolved around hand to hand combat, but most of the students ended up mastering zanjutsu because of the importance of the Zanpakuto in the Gotei 13. She could not think of the last time she had practiced any hakuda in the last year and a half.

Reiatsu still hung over her head like a thunder cloud. She could feel it lighten and grow heavy as the students out on the field flexed their spiritual energy. Slowly she traveled across the landing to the other end of the field, watching the fights as she weaved between the other students.

She halted in her tracks when she felt a very fierce rush of reiatsu sweep over her, and she immediately focused her wondering eyes on a pair fighting toward the back of the field. There she found two men entangled in a lock hold, the larger man having twisted the smaller mans arm behind him. Both men were topless and bruises were already forming along their torsos where dirt clung to them.

But it was not the larger man who had sent out that wave of reiatsu, Matsumoto was sure of that. It had been the smaller man, the one whose arms looked like they might brake in an instance with the way that larger man was holding him. And while the reiatsu she had felt was immensely powerful and well controlled, it was the desperation that had laced the spiritual energy that Matsumoto had reacted to.

The smaller man had gotten loose by this point and Matsumoto was glued where she was as she watched the two men. Sumo Guy, as she had nicknamed the larger man, looked out of breath and exhausted as he squared off with his partner. His legs dragged and his chest was heaving up and down with his heavy breathing. On the other hand, Serious Man (the nickname for the smaller man) was holding his body taut. The arms Matsumoto thought could be easily broken were lean but actually quiet muscular.

It did not take long for Serious Man to pin Sumo Guy to the ground and finish the fight. Serious Man had his knee pinned against Sumo Guys neck when Sumo Guy waved that he gave. Matsumoto watched as Serious Man helped pull Sumo Guy to his feet and then turned to look for his top.

When he stood up with his shirt in his hand, Serious Man turned toward the landing where all the students were watching and Matsumoto got a good, hard look at his face. His cheeks were sharp and angular while his lips were set in a firm line. Her eyes traveled up to his own and found him staring right back at her.

She breathed deeply through tight lips as she saw him staring at her. Much like his reiatsu, his eyes were strong but clouded with desperation and determination. Matsumoto pictured storm clouds swirling in his eyes and found it hard to keep eye contact. It was he who broke eye contact first, looking down to the ground and then darting back to her face for an instance out of the corner of his eyes. He took his shirt in his hand and rubbed it across the face in an attempt to wipe the sweat off. She then watched as he turned and moved across the field toward his sensei.

Quickly, Matsumoto left the landing and traveled down the hallway in quick steps. She did not understand exactly why her heart was beating so hard but she knew she could not look at that man for another second without feeling her knees go week. It was not that she found him attractive, correction, he was quite ravishing, but that was not the reason for her sudden emotional swirl.

How could a mans eyes change her mood completely? It was like his eyes looked into her soul and pulled at some long forgotten, buried memory that she had ignored for a long time. Or maybe his desperation had pulled at some part of her heart. What made him so determined to win that battle? Why had he been so desperate?

Traveling across the campus back to the Third Years office, Matsumoto suddenly wondered what it would be like to see him smile. And she resolved at that moment that if she ever meet him again she would work her magic to get him to smile at least once. With that goal in mind a smile blossomed on her face and she began to hum as she turned down the hall to get her next assignment of punishment from her sensei.


End file.
